Real Presence

"Contemplating the icon, with faith and love, draws us out of our material world and into that divine world to which we will only have full access after death. On this earth, we live in His kingdom, but in hope and faith, not in experience. These early icons with their pure desire to praise God draw us very strongly into this unseen reality."

In her earlier Encounters with God Sister Wendy Beckett, a contemplative nun and beloved art commentator, traveled to remote churches and monasteries to view the earliest icons of Mary. In Real Presence she resumes this journey to find icons of Jesus and the saints' icons that are among the few to survive the wholesale destruction of icons in the early eighth century.

Sister Wendy Beckett (1930-2018) was a South-African born contemplative hermit and consecrated virgin who lived on the grounds of a Carmelite convent in Quidenham, England. An avid student of art, she became an international sensation after the BBC produced a series of programs in which she traveled around the world visiting art museums and commenting on what she saw. This was followed by scores of books, many on art history, as well as others on more spiritual themes, including Sister Wendy's Bible Treasury, Encounters with God, and Real Presence.